My kitchen is a picture of domestic bliss: gingerbread men fashioned by Zoe in the oven, chicken curry in the pressure cooker. But the reality is that Zoe is home early from school because the roads to town are sure to be cut by now with the second flood in 10 days.

Groundhog day

A neighbour tells me he tipped 94mm out of the gauge this morning and it hasn’t stopped raining since. The cows are on high ground (as is the house, thankfully) but they ate those pastures out only a week ago to give the flats a chance to recover and the grass is still short.

What will we do? Redo our budgets, then call the gravel contractor to get first in line for track repairs, followed closely by the fodder supplier.

The cows will have soft, tender feet so we’ll have to take them extra gently along the tracks and we’ve already earmarked a “sacrifice” paddock to spare our saturated soils from pugging and compaction.

None of this would be too, too terrible if it was November but it’s only June 4 and as the wry @Hoddlecows noted on Twitter, optimism about the new season seems to be washing away with the flood waters.